Monday, February 13, 2006
Flickr -Ya, screwed.
I wrote Boing Boing after reading Flickr's new community guidelines this morning. They eventually picked up the story. The lovely Xeni Jardin saw it fit to note. It's a good story. Yawscrew changing the rules after they purchased a company. Some may say, "So what? It's pornography." Well, A) not all nudity in art forms is pornography, B) it may be adults who want to share of their own volition and C) Yahoo makes this change without warning to the previous owners of Flickr accounts and therefore violates their free speech rights. They owe a refund at a minimum and, potentially, damages and an apology.
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2 comments:
at least they could give us some way to set photos to not show up in searches, public areas, etc and still allow us to share them externally... that would be the smart thing to do.
According to an update on the Boing Boing story, Flickr still allows the photos to be viewed - whether or not they are marked private - by selecting all sizes and then copying down the URL for the appropriate size. That still seems like a hassle.
I understand their dilemma. On the one hand, there is no age verification system on Flickr and this is a legal issue for the more puritanical in our society. On the other hand, as I noted in Boing Boing, not all nudity is pornography.
Hm, perhaps we should run around and take photographs of nude artworks (like Lady Justice at the Justice Department...apparently after Ashcroft left, the curtains were removed), etc. Then we'll post them to Flickr and see if they become private. Perhaps we could even take photos of photos of nude models? We sure do need to make a point about this.
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